China is 'weaponizing capital' — and it's keeping the head of the US Navy awake at night

A member of Pakistan Navy is seen at the Gwadar port in Pakistan's Balochistan Province Thomson Reuters

China has pursued numerous commercial and infrastructure deals around the world in recent years.

Critics see this as a Chinese effort to extent its influence abroad.

These financial maneuvers are a source of concern for many — including the head of the US Navy.

China's move to boost defense spending has sparked dismay among US officials in recent days, but it is Beijing's efforts to gain influence that are more worrisome, the secretary of the US Navy said on Wednesday.

China's finance ministry said this weekend that the country's defense budget will rise 6% to 1.1 trillion yuan or $173 billion. It is the biggest increase in three years and makes China's defense budget the world's second-largest — behind only the US.

Chinese state media defended the new budget as proportionate and low. "If calculated in per capita terms, China's military lags well behind other major countries," official English-language newspaper China Daily said this week.

On Tuesday, US Navy Adm. Scott Swift, the head of US Pacific Fleet, said the military budget lacked transparency and that China's "intent is not clearly understood."

On Wednesday, US Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer — asked about Russian and Chinese activity in relation to the newest US National Security Strategy— echoed those concerns but pointed to a different kind of spending.

"When it comes to China, the bottom line there is the checkbook, to be very frank with you," Spencer told members of the House Appropriations Committee. "Not only in the dollar and cents that they are writing to support their military expansion and their technological [research and development] work, but what they're doing around the globe that I know you all are aware of, which is weaponizing capital, to be very frank with you."

Spencer pointed to a summer 2017 deal China signed with Sri Lanka, the island nation just south of India, where Beijing agreed to a 99-year lease to operate the strategically located deep-water port of Hambantota, which is located near important shipping routes in the Indian Ocean.

"Going into Sri Lanka, redoing the port, putting an interest rate — not as aid, but as a total secured loan with a pretty hefty coupon — [the] debtor fails on that, and the asset owner comes and reclaims it and says, 'These are now ours,'" Spencer told the committee of the deal. "They're doing that around the globe. So their open checkbook keeps me up at night."

Many Sri Lankans were themselves dismayed with the agreement, taking to the streets to protest what they saw as growing Chinese influence in their country. India, which has eyed Chinese infrastructure deals and military activity in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region warily, also objected.

"This is going to be a standing example for the other countries to watch, because China is not Father Christmas, handing out dollar bills. They want return on the money, and they want the money to come within a certain, certified period," K.C. Singh, former secretary at the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, said in July.

"Is it a model then for future extension of the Chinese strategic footprint?" Singh added. "When ... countries can't return the money, then you grab territory?"

A map of projects subsumed under One Belt, One Road program by China as of March 2017. Reuters

The port deal was a part of China's One Belt, One Road initiative, a project to link scores of countries in Asia, Oceania, Africa, and Europe through Chinese-backed railways, shipping routes, and infrastructure projects.

As a part of that effort, China has funded development projects in poorer countries, which it leverages for more advantageous relations or for regional access. The trend has also been called "debt-trap diplomacy."

Hambantota is not the only port deal secured by the Chinese government or a Chinese state-owned company in recent years. Beijing has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to win over locals and develop a deep-water port in Gwadar, on Pakistan's Indian Ocean coast.

Shipping containers at the port of Guangzhou, in Guangdong province, China, June 14, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer

The moves are a departure from China's usual approach to such foreign projects, but the focus has concerned India and the US, which see Beijing's investment in Gwadar as part of efforts to expand Chinese naval influence.

Chinese state firms are also growing their presence in Europe, buying up ports and cargo terminals on the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts — including Spain, Italy, Greece, and Belgium.

Chinese state-owned enterprises now control about one-tenth of all European port capacity.

European leaders have become concerned Beijing plans to leverage its financial interests into political clout. Greece, where Chinese influence has grown in recent years, has blocked recent EU efforts to condemn China over its human-rights record and other policies.

"The Chinese are playing the long game. They are, as the secretary said, everywhere I go, they're there," Neller said. "They're going and they're buying airfields and ports to extend their reach ... they want to win without fighting."